Hey guys. I've returned once again to cope and sneed. Consider this Part 2.5 of my series of posts on Latin American animation.
Part 1: Cartoon Network: The cousins south of the border.
Corrections: You can find the
Leyendas movies and show as
Legend Quest in Netflix iirc.
Part 2: Little victories.
Corrections: Frankelda takes place in Mineral del Monte, which is the nickname of the real life Real del Monte since it was founded as a mining settlement. The studio behind it is called Cinema Fantasma, not Estudio Fantasma. I realized my mistakes too late.4
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So, why am I coping about today? Well, the game is rigged. This post is specifically about
Soy Frankelda. I think the motherfucking producers want this thing to tank tbh and I came here to bitch about it because I want to jinx my prediction. So, this movie's entire ad campaign was through word of mouth by fans and for most of the year the only things they had were stills and positive word of mouth in festivals. They released the one and only trailer and poster about a month due to release (October 23) and I think they got that date because they are fully expecting to only get the mandatory two weeks that extend to Halloween and Day of the Dead.
So, I was expecting this to go direct to streaming because it makes sense. It's a continuation (more like a recontextualization) of a 3 year old show that is fully available in HBO Max. But they wanted the (probably limited) theatre run, I assume for prestige. I used what little free time I've nowadays to check if the cinema chain that is supposed to have the exclusive rights for screenings at least is promoting it and guess what? They have one poster... hidden behind the bigger posters for
Demon Slayer and
Chainsaw Man. Well, to make matters worse
Paranorman gets a re-release the same fucking week because Laika doesn't bomb hard enough I guess. They actually promoted it earlier because they still have some money left. Chances are most people that would watch stop-motion movies would go for the sure bet especially due to nostalgia. Not even mentioning stop-motion has struggled more for an audience. Del Toro's
Frankenstein gets its own limited run this Friday. Fucking Del Toro, who even so called animation fans won't shut up helped Cinema Fantasma when he himself has said all he did was point them towards funding.
So, most people aren't optimistic even without half the exposition I just gave you. Because Mexicans apparently showed up in droves for
Flow and
Memoir of a Snail, and even then everyone isn't optimistic. Both of those movies got international releases, both had normal ad campaigns. At least
Flow was good. I consider
Memoir to be a rethread of
Mary and Max that knows the audience doesn't pay attention. Besides, Mexicans may be massive consoomers but they consoom tripe. There's an entire joke that Mexican indie films are in an everlasting golden age and the country is not the wiser.
Oh, but if the movie is good people will see it.
Transformers One, you want to go the route of
Transformes One. You want to be fondly remembered as the movie that was so good people didn't bother to pay to see it. How many great movies, especially animated ones didn't bomb at the box office? This movie has "cult classic" tattooed in its forehead and is like everyone just accepted it before it even premiered.
I love screaming at walls. No one in this thread had the power to save that movie or show they loved, to give it the audience it deserved. Everything I've written in this thread since my return is shit that has tormented me for wanting to be an animator. But I'll do it anyway, because I want to. I want to be wrong but if I'm right, I write.
Your soul is ink. Write your story.
